Tigers Are Favored to Win MLB Title With Verlander’s Strikeouts

By Erik Matuszewski -
Oct 24, 2012

The Detroit Tigers, fueled by the
strikeout arms of Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer, are trying
to win a World Series with a pitching achievement not seen since
Hall of Famers Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale carried the Los
Angeles Dodgers to the championship in 1963.

Verlander, the 2011 AL Most Valuable Player and Cy Young
Award winner, starts for the Tigers tonight in Game 1 of the
best-of-seven World Series in San Francisco against the Giants.
The Tigers’ pitching staff, which has a 1.74 postseason earned
run average, is the biggest reason Detroit is favored by
oddsmakers to win its first title since 1984.

“The Tigers are bringing in a rotation that’s not only
throwing well, but they’re on a confidence high,” ESPN baseball
analyst Orel Hershiser, the 1988 World Series MVP, said on a
conference call. “They just carried this team.”

Verlander, a 29-year-old right-hander, has led the way,
with a 3-0 record, a 0.74 ERA and 25 strikeouts in 24 1/3
innings. Scherzer has fanned 18 in 11 postseason innings while
logging a 0.82 ERA, and Doug Fister has 13 strikeouts in 13 1/3
innings with a 1.35 ERA. Anibal Sanchez also has a 1.35 ERA in
two playoff starts, with 10 strikeouts in 13 1/3 innings.

“There’s depth there, and the fact that they’re all lined
up gives them a huge advantage,” MLB Network analyst Al Leiter
said of the Tigers, who have had five days off since completing
a four-game sweep of the Yankees in the AL Championship Series.

Giants Pitching

Because the Giants had to rally from a 3-1 deficit in the
NL Championship Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, Matt Cain and Ryan Vogelsong will probably be unavailable for the
first two games. Barry Zito will start tonight’s opening game
for San Francisco, which has a 3.87 postseason ERA.

Detroit held the Yankees to a .157 batting average in the
ALCS, with 36 strikeouts. The Tigers’ pitching is “just mowing
people down,” Hershiser said, with an average of 9.36
strikeouts per nine innings.

“The strikeout is a huge, huge weapon,” Hershiser said.
“Any time you can make the opposing team have to go to the
dugout without moving a runner up 90 feet, and you can do that
up to the seventh, eighth or ninth inning, you have a huge
advantage in the game.”

The odds of Las Vegas bookmakers suggest a 62 percent
chance Detroit wins the World Series. Detroit is listed as the -
170 money line favorites, meaning a bettor would have to wager
$170 to win $100, while the Giants are +150.

Last Title

The last team in the World Series to average more than a
strikeout an inning in the playoffs was the 2010 Texas Rangers.
That club lost in five games to the Giants.

The last team to win the World Series averaging more than a
strikeout an inning in the postseason was the 1963 Dodgers, as
Koufax and Drysdale combined for 32 strikeouts over 27 innings
in a four-game sweep of the Yankees.

“There is no other environment where a walk is a rally,
except October,” said ESPN analyst Curt Schilling, who was the
2001 World Series MVP for Arizona after striking out 26 Yankees
batters in 21 1/3 innings. “Somebody gets a base runner on, and
you immediately think of the potential. When you can strike
hitters out at a higher rate, you negate the potential leadoff
walk as a weapon.”

Strikeout Rate

The Giants had the fourth-lowest strikeout rate in the
major leagues this season at 17.7 percent. They also ranked
sixth with a ground-ball rate of 46.5 percent, meaning they may
test a Detroit defense that had the 11th-most errors in the
league during the regular season.

In addition, the Giants allowed only one run in winning the
final three games of the NLCS.

“I know what a great club they are,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said of Detroit. “And we know all about the guy we’re
going to be facing in the opener and their whole staff. They
swept the Yankees, that tells you how good they are.”

This is the fourth World Series meeting between a team
coming off a sweep and a club that was pushed to a decisive
seventh game. In the previous three, the team that played Game 7
in the LCS won the World Series, including the Cardinals win
over Detroit in 2006.

“It’s different when you’re taking batting practice every
day than when you’re playing NLCS games down to the last game,”
Zito said. “Our nerves are at the height of how they can be
right now. But don’t sleep on these guys. We’re not taking
anything for granted at this point.”